


Damocles

by Prideaux



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prideaux/pseuds/Prideaux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He came to warn you, because he knew deep down that it was you all along."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damocles

The doorbell rang. Not once, but over and over, each trill sounding more and more distressed as Bill clattered down the stairs. Sparing the clock a short glance, his stomach clenched into a fist - something had to be wrong. Nobody would turn up at four o’clock in the morning unless something was wrong - the only question left was that of _what_. The doorbell continued to wail.

“They’re looking for a mole.” Jim Prideaux stood, soaked, on his doorstep, the shadows of his face sharpened by the sodium glare of the streetlamp.  
“You’ll catch your death.” Was all Bill could find to say. Jim looked down at himself, then up at the sky, as if noticing the weather for the first time. “Get inside.”

Jim’s face was worse indoors; stark and pale in the harsh light of the hallway, red rimmed eyes set deep in dark, restless hollows. Bill wanted to reach out, to take him to bed, to act as though nothing was wrong.  
“Jim, I can explain.” He said, instead.  
“Don’t.” There was something more. Something that Jim wasn’t saying. “Get me a drink.”

Bill poured a glass of whiskey, then hesitated and finally took a long swig from the bottle himself. When he returned to the hallway, Jim was sat at the bottom of the stairs, his head in his hands. Bill touched the glass to Jim’s fingers, and watched them curl around it gratefully.

“I’m going to Czecho in the morning.” World-weary and oh so betrayed. Realisation settled in the pit of Bill’s stomach - the thought making him feel queasy. He’d sold his soul to Moscow, but left his heart in the trusting hands of the Circus - in the hands of Jim Prideaux - and now the lines between the two were crossing.

“Don’t go, Jim.” The explanation hung unsaid between them, a sword of Damocles for a Cold War generation. “Please don’t go.” Jim said nothing, but his grip tightened on his glass, ice rattling as his hand shook.  
“I’ll be back soon.” They both knew that wasn’t true, but Jim said it anyway, soft and solemn. 

Bill wasn’t even sure when he’d begun to choke up, but Jim leant forwards and kissed him before he could say anything else. Before Jim could see him break. The shock of it stilled him, forced him to swallow the lump in his throat and return the kiss with the sort of urgency he didn’t even know he could feel.

Jim never initiated intimacy, always leaving it to Bill to pull him into the shadows, to set the pace of their dalliance. Tonight though , Jim clung to him like a drowning man. The stench of spilt whiskey was pungent, but even as he heard the thud of the glass leaving Jim’s hand, Bill couldn’t find it in his heart to care.  
“Don’t go,” He managed to say again, but Jim ignored him.

They stumbled upstairs, all elbows and knees, Jim’s mouth cloying and hot against his, and how they managed all those steps whilst so intertwined, Bill would never be able to remember. What he would remember, would be the flutter of heartbreak on Jim’s face as he pulled back. Jim who guarded his emotions over anything else, naked and defenceless for one long moment.  
“I need you,” Jim told him. Not _I want you_ \- Bill wasn’t sure if Jim did even want him any more - but _I need you_ , ragged and hoarse.

And finally, when Jim took him to bed and they came, sweating and shaking, one after the other; when Jim whispered his name just once, his eyes wet and shining and his face twisted in a beautiful sort of misery, Bill knew it would be both the first and the only time.

He couldn’t bring himself to return home the night afterwards, or the night after that, choosing instead, the hollow company of Ann Smiley, who called his name over and over and who led him upstairs without a second thought. 

By the time the news of a British spy gunned down in Czechoslovakia had broken and Bill had forced himself to return home, the glass at the bottom of the stairs was surrounded by a dry, brown stain that stank of expensive whiskey and his sheets smelt of nothing at all.


End file.
